ONE YEAR!

The birthday boy!!!

Oh what a year! I just looked back at the postings I had a year ago this week - they were interesting to read - going from thinking that I had 20 some days left of my pregnancy to having Brody a few days later! It is so hard to believe that it has been a whole year already! I found myself thinking so much about last year this week - missing being pregnant and having this brand new baby (I am sure a year ago I would have never thought I would be saying that). We have moved from the every 2 hour (sometimes 1 hour feedings) to having Brody sleep for 12 hours straight at night. It is really hard not to feel like his birthday yesterday was a goodbye to his baby years - he just seems so much older!

We had a great weekend! It started off with Friday night being my mom's birthday and my dad surprised her with a party at a local restaurant. Jim, Brody and I arrived early to decorate the tables and get everything set up. My brother showed up shortly after and then 20 of mom's friends and our family members. She was so surprised! It was a great night - topping everything off is that Brody reached out for her when he saw her (of course melting her heart!). On Saturday my brother, mom and dad took Brody to The Country Mill which is an orchard/pumpkin patch that we went to as kids so he could pick out a pumpkin (pictures of that trip are still to come - I haven't gotten them from my dad yet). Jim and I spent the day getting ready for Brody's 1st Birthday - it was actually a really productive day without having to chase around a little one while you tried to clean the house. On Sunday, we spent the morning watching Brody explore his presents (he wasn't too interested in opening them but liked to play with them). My mom and dad bought him a little car that we can push him around in (he was in love with it!), my brother bought him some very nice clothes and a sports all in one toy (he is becoming a little basketball player), Jim's parents sent him a certificate to name a star, clothes, books and a savings bond and Jim and I bought him a chair for the living room and a blowup football trainer (I think Jim has hopes of a little Penn Stater!). He was a very spoiled boy with additional gifts in the afternoon!The day turned out to be beautiful! Near 80 degrees and sunny - who would have guessed on the 12th of October! We had some of our family over and our neighbors and had a great time catching up with everyone. Brody did a great job with his cupcake! I was a little surprised that he even tried to eat it. We ended the party with him going off for a nap and the adults all having a chance to talk. It really was a great day!

The Surprise!

The birthday girl!

Jim bought Brody some balloons

The ladies at day care made him a very cute sign!

I never imagined that it would have been such a beautiful day! It was just like last year (we went into the hospital with the weather in the 70s and came out in the 50s!)

The football trainer (Brody loved it!)

Cupcakes!!!

Brody's Special Cupcake!

Today Brody stayed home because his Day care was closed for an education day so it was a morning of relaxing and then I had to head off to work for a few hours. We went for two walks with his car today - he is so funny honking the horn as we go around the neighborhood!

Uncle Neal's toy is a hit!

One thing Brody has learned in his 1st year is how to pose for the camera!

We have a big week this week - Jim will be leaving for Pennsylvania to go to a Penn State football game with his brothers and Brody and I will be heading to the allergist on Thursday to hopefully find out more about his breathing issues. My mom and dad are going to come on Wednesday night to help me out because we are likely to be at the allergist for 2-3 hours! Then this weekend Brody and I are going to head off to visit my friend Barb and her two girls for the night.

I hope everyone has a great week! I will keep you updated to what we find out from the allergist and add some more of my dad's pictures when I get them (he took over 100 in two days!) I'm sure there will be some good ones!!

Fifty One Weeks

He is a little boy!

Fifty One Weeks! Only 7 more days until my little baby is one!!! I can't believe how fast this year has gone...I seriously can remember being in labor like it was yesterday! Some days I really miss being home with him last fall - it is true that you only remember the good memories. Because I do know that there were days when I just didn't know what to do with myself because I had no adults to talk to! Now I think I could easily stay home with Brody because he interacts with us so much and entertains himself so you can actually get a few things done. I told Jim that it was amazing to me how much we can now get done in one day - this morning we ran some errands, painted the garage door, mowed the lawn, edged the driveway, made a real dinner, vacuumed, prepared squash for tomorrow (trying something new) and now Jim is preparing beef for beef jerky and I am sitting here updating the blog - who knew only one year later we would be back to living a somewhat normal life!

Sometimes I just can't help but watch him sleep at night!

Since I last updated the blog I went on my first "girls weekend" to go wine tasting in southwest Michigan. I had a lot of fun and Jim enjoyed his time with Brody. He ended up taking him to get his haircut - which I did not know about before I left! It did turn out really cute - but he looks like a little boy now. We also went camping again last weekend - it was a beautiful weekend and we had a great time. There was a small festival going on in the town we went to (Cedar Springs Red Flannel Days) so we decided to go to the children's parade. We all got set up in our lawn chairs, watched the parade from start to finish in 3 minutes and then headed down to the petting zoo (it was pretty funny how small the parade was but the kids enjoyed it).

They had a llama at the petting zoo!

Jim thought it was a good idea to have a 5 year old drive Brody around in her new F150 (this is why boys need their dads)!

In the last week Brody found out how to stand. Last Sunday when we got back from camping Jim and I were in the living room with him and looked up and saw him standing at his toys....we couldn't believe it! But before we could get a picture he had fallen down and did not attempt to stand again. By Tuesday he was standing in his crib at daycare and refusing to take naps. Wednesday night he stood for me again but Jim was gone to a football game. Finally on Friday night he really started standing a lot and this weekend we ended up rearranging the living room so that he would be barricaded in - it made it a lot easier to keep track of him and he had a huge area to play in.

Brody Standing (for the first time on film!)

Just hanging around!

We are getting ready for Brody's 1st Birthday Party next Sunday. We decided not to do anything too big since he won't really know what is going on. I will make sure to post pictures next week.

Overall, Brody is doing well with his breathing - we are now doing nebulizer treatments two times a day with an inhaled steroid. He will be going to see the allergist in about 2 weeks where I am guessing he will be tested for allergies and asthma (to confirm his diagnosis and make sure he is on the best therapy).

Hope everyone is having a great start to Fall!

Here is a video of Brody when he was first learning how to use the walker (or is it jumper?)

Update

Brody enjoying the slide (Jim and I couldn't help but laugh at the static in his hair!)

I thought I would update everyone on what happened today at our MRI appointment. Once again we were sent home without the test being completed because of Brody's breathing. He started coughing yesterday morning and by the evening was wheezing. This morning when the doctor listened to his chest before his MRI appointment he said that it would not be safe to sedate him and that he strongly recommended we call our doctor soon. This of course scared me - I have a new understanding for the way health professionals communicate information - the doctor's tone and body language today made me feel that he thought Brody was really sick. On the way home I called our family doctor (one of the perks of working at the office). She was great and calmed my fears and called in a steroid for Brody to use for the next 5 days along with his breathing treatments - we saw a big improvement after Brody woke up from his 3 hour nap today! We are planning on starting him on a daily inhaled steroid to help with his breathing after he finishes the 5 days of his current treatment. I never knew how much I was going to have to worry about this little guy! We have rescheduled the MRI for a 3rd time but are planning on meeting with our doctor to see if we can just skip it if Brody's head size has normalized (now that it has been 3 months!) and he is developing fine.

Jim was pretty frustrated with the whole day, so after Brody woke up from his nap and was sounding better, he suggested that we head to the local park - as you can tell from the pictures Brody had a great time!

I know I am his mom...but isn't he the cutest little guy?

Finally a picture of Brody with me!

Brody loved the swing!

Brody got more confident in his swinging

Jim's addition to the Blog - he thought it was hilarious that the post office we tried to stop at after the park was just a random trailer - unfortunately we didn't get to see the inside because they are only open 8-2 every day!

Eleven Months!

COLLEGE FOOTBALL HAS STARTED!

Well I guess I should have realized the last time I posted that I would be an every other month blogger! I can't believe how busy life got and how little time I have had to actually sit down and work on something for more than a few minutes!


This could be a long entry because I have a month and a half of information to send! In the time since I lost posted Brody started taking his first steps, crawling and has had 8 more teeth come in (the first set of molars came in at the same time)! We have been camping a few times and also to Pennsylvania to visit Jim's family.

Brody's First Steps (Back on 8/14/08)

Brody on the move (he learned to crawl the week before Labor Day)

Everything has been going really well with us - it has been so amazing to see Brody transform so much in the last few months - I can't believe my little baby is only one month from being a YEAR OLD! It seems like he has grown up way too fast!!!

Jim's Mom had given Brody this Thomas the Train for Christmas - he LOVES to ride it around the house (but it kills our backs pushing!)

In the next few weeks we have a lot of doctor's appointments for Brody. He has to go for an MRI next Friday because his head was in the 110th percentile at his 9 month visit - you may remember that we had an ultrasound of his brain done when he was 4 months old (those results were normal). Since his head has continued to grow this will be the final test to show that everything is fine - they get worried when a babys head grows too fast/large because it could be because there is fluid collecting in the brain. Since Brody is developing normally that is very unlikely but of course we want to rule out everything. The worst part of Friday will be that he has to be sedated to undergo the MRI so Jim and I will not be with him for about 45 minutes while he is sedated...I think that will be the longest 45 minutes of our lives! The other doctor's appointment will be with the allergist. We tried to make an appointment with a pulmonologist back in May but when received the appt date it was in December. When Brody was suppose to have his original appointment for the MRI back August the doctor there recommended that we go to an allergist because Brody at that time had too much congestion to safely undergo the sedation. Our appt is in mid October so hopefully after that we will know whether Brody has allergies, asthma or a combination of both!

Brody and his cousins (Sydney and Dylan) taking a bath at Jim's Parent's House

Jim traveled for the first time in a while last week. Brody and I were on our own from Monday thru Thursday night. It was a big change from when Jim traveled and Brody wasn't on the move! I ate my dinner on the move pretty much every night - but we had so much fun! He is so fun to play with and ready books with! He was even nice enough to sleep in each morning until after I was ready for work!

Brody's 10 Month Pictures

I hope everyone had a great summer! Sorry for the delay in writing! My plan is to get back on track now that the weather has gotten cooler and we are only planning on going on one more camping trip this season.

We went camping this weekend (Yes in all the rain!). Brody and Jim made the best of it!

This was Brody shortly after the above video!

While we were unpacking the camper - Brody was unpacking the truck! Jim found his sitting in his carseat opening all of the buns!

Bath time is so much fun!

Nine and a half months

Some days I just like to sit and watch Brody (I just can't believe he is my son!)

I think it is time for me to accept that I will no longer be a weekly blogger - hopefully I can stick to an every other week blogger! We have been very busy in my defense!

Last week was my first trip away from Brody - I had to go to a meeting for work in Chicago and Jim decided to come along for the ride. Brody went and stayed with my parents from Saturday - Monday. My parents were VERY excited to have Brody for a few days and they had a lot of things planned to keep him busy! Here are just a few pictures documenting his busy weekend!

While I was gone I imagined Brody sitting around missing his mommy

But...He was having the time of his life!!!!

Uncle Neal was there to take him swimming (you can tell where Brody gets his expressions - look at Uncle Neal's face!)

Brody saw a lot of Grandpa's favorite things - ANIMALS!

And rode a lot of them!

Here he is riding Peanut - one of the ponies I use to take little kids around on when I worked at the zoo!

And then she took him on the camel rides (which I also use to run)! But I would never take him on a camel today because I have witnessed them attack (if you haven't heard the story I will have to share it with you some day)

By the end of the day Brody was believing he was part of the zoo!

Jim and I got back from Chicago late Monday night and returned home on Tuesday for a shortened work week. We barely had time to unpack before we left for another weekend of camping (it seems like we always plan our camping around our other trips!). We had a great time this weekend in Cadillac (it was kind of strange being back at the campground because we were there last year about this time when I was pregnant with Brody). It was just our family camping so we had a very relaxing weekend.

A picture of Brody on our first camping trip - he enjoys the relaxed atmosphere!

The family on the first camping trip - Brody is sleeping in the stroller!

We went walking along the nature trail that my brother recommended in Cadillac

The biggest news with Brody is that he now has 7 teeth total (2 fully in, 1 halfway and 4 others on the way). Today was Brody's 9 month check up at the Doctor's. He weighed in at 20lbs 6oz and was 29 inches long! My little baby is becoming a little boy! Jim and I have been looking at some pictures of him when he was 1 month old and we can't remember him being so tiny! Jim has continued to work with him to get him crawling - he is getting closer (video below!). I hope everyone has been having a great summer!

Watch at the end of the video how Brody responds to Jim's attempt to get him to crawl further!